FEATHERS IN THE GRASS

So after wasting getting up at 5:15 and "wasting" an hour and a half on the internet i decided to spend no more time stressing over the oil spill for once, and take an hour at the gym to send my energies elsewhere for a minute. As I was walking to the gym I noticed something, there was this huge gorgeous feather just lying on the grass. It also had freshly fallen from a bird, you could tell by how clean it was and untouched.

This feather got me thinking about myself when I was a child and how if I ever saw a feather on the grass i would have picked it up in a heartbeat. It wouldn't have mattered if it was freshly removed or not. And then I would play with that feather, and keep it in my room as if it was the most precious object I have ever found. (It was my gold. It was my oil. It was my Dolce & Gabana cologne. Hello?)

This morning I walked over to pick it up, but then thought, "What is the point in picking up the feather? What would I even do with it?" And then I continued my walk to the gym. It was on the rest of the walk that I thought, "Why wouldn't I pick it up? If I was a child that feather most assuredly would not still be there even if I was heading to the zoo or an amusement park. Nothing would have stopped me from picking up that feather."

What happens to us as we get older that we start forgetting those amazing childhood moments? I am sure that if I sat and contemplated it I could come up with so many more amazing and interesting ways to keep and preserve that feather than a six-year-old could. However, I decided I didn't want to use my brain that way anymore. I believe, at this moment while I am typing this, what an awful decision that was to just leave that feather on the grass.

A feather is special. A feather to me symbolizes strength, wisdom, flight, heights, elegance, beauty, and perseverance. That is what a feather indicates if I sit and dream about it. However, I decided to disregard all of that beauty and pass up the feather. I don't know if a six-year-old would have thought of any of those things, and yet they would respect that feather more than this 30-ahem-something would. Maybe a six-year-old knows all along how beautiful and magical a feather can be. Maybe the six-year-old just doesn't have the words yet to express the intelligence they possess.

So I want to make a vow (and who cares that it took me all these words to say this), but I will never pass up another feather on the grass again. I am going to respect that what that is on the grass is not just a feather, but a bit of childhood brilliance. I don't think that childhood brilliance should be left sitting on the grass.

ALICE CARTER - CALL THEM BY NAME

So not to start this blog off on a depressing note, but last night someone who is very dear to me in my life passed away from cancer. Although I have not spoken to this woman in probably five years (and not for any reason) she has been a staple on my life. She has been in my life since I was a child growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas.

When I first heard about what happened (through a text from my mother) I immediately told my mom that I am moved to write a blog about it. However, I told my mother that I wouldn't mention her by name. I began to think about that that statement. I have to mention her by name.

THIS WOMAN WAS ALICE CARTER - AND SHE WAS REMARKABLE!!!

Why wouldn't I mention her by name? Alice Carter is a woman who is such an important part of my childhood memories. Alice Carter gave me my very first job ever (outside of my father). I remember rolling papers for the newspaper route that she had. I remember Alice Carter ordering pizzas and sodas, and my brother and I (along with all of her kids) staying up to roll papers, eat pizza, and play video games. I even remember the apartment she lived in before she moved out of the city into a fancy trailer outside the city limits. I remember going over to see her before moving to Florida, and I remember advancing from video games to a board game. (Although I don't remember which one.)

Alice Carter always wore a bandanna, I remember that. Alice Carter always was the nicest person and cared for people, but she was especially kind to my brother and I. I remember that as the names from people from my childhood come and go, I remember the name Alice Carter. I remember all of her kids, even though we are more facebook buddies than actual day-to-day friends (I know you are reading this Alicia and Michelle...thanks for reading.) I remember that Alice Carter and her kids and I always had a good time when we were together, even though no money was spent.

I figure this...I HAVE to mention her name. Most of you guys reading this don't even know who Alice Carter is, maybe you never will. But I know that I have memories attached with Alice Carter that will be lost forever if I don't mention them. I know that the name Alice Carter will be lost if I don't tell you her name and who she was. I know that the spirit of Alice Carter (her energy, her drive, her kindness, her generosity) will only live on if I explain how wonderful it was?

I think the time has come to mention people by name. The people that are in our memories that connect with great and good thoughts should be mentioned by their given name. That is how we identify them. That is what I think we all should do; if we want them to be lost, then don't even talk about them. However, if we want to tell others about the great nostalgia they bring up (or if we just want to keep them as a forefront in our minds) then we need to mention these special people by their name.

I won't hide Alice Carter as a blog. She is special to me and will now and always be special to me. My childhood cannot be replaced, and she was part of making mine a memorable one. Thank you Alice Carter; Love you and miss you.

FIREWORK SPECTACLE

The other night I was at the Grand Floridian Hotel (Resort, whatever) in Disneyworld (land, whatever) as Scott's best friend from Maine was in town, and after an aggressive conversation Scott and I agreed to make the trek back up to Orlando to see her and her family again on a Tuesday night, no less (sorry to my job if I appeared less then my best the next day.)

As we arrived we realized that we came just in time to see the nightly firework spectacle that occurs in front of Cinderella's castle. Of course it is a ways a way from the resort, but you can see it brilliantly in the night sky. There were ten kids of different ages standing right by the water of the resort watching these amazing fireworks from the distance. Here's the thing about those ten kids - five of them were under the age of ten, and the other five were over the age of twenty-five.

I don't think this sudden diminishing age gap was the "magic of Disney" or because we were at the "happiest place on earth." I believe the true magic was simply just the fireworks.

There is power in the simplistic magic of fireworks that makes the loudest kids stand in awe and helps adults forget that they are not children. Is it the noise? Is it the colors? Is it the grandeur? Who cares?

For that brief moment there were no distractions for anyone. There were no business prospects. No Wii Nintendo. No chores. No bad feelings. There was just ten kids (and five of them would never be classified as kids away from fireworks) staring with inspiring awe at the exploding colors.

We, as a society, tend to separate ourselves physically every day from the world. With every invention created to bring the world closer together we all get further apart. Every second we spend on the computer is a second we don't spend with our friends or our family. Every time we plop ourselves down to watch television we allow that generational gap to grow ever wider.

We are always trying to be new and fresh, and yet no matter what the old is always what astounds us. Everyone out there with an ipod ever foamed at the mouth when someone else has an ipod? Anyone with a computer ever had time stop when you saw your friends computer? Anyone with a television ever actually faint when you see someone else's television? And even if you walked in the room and you were in awe at the television, did everyone else in the room just stop too, or was it just one person? Chances are good that it was just you.

Fireworks, sunsets, hot air balloons, alligators in the wild, etc....these are the things that makes everyone stop and watch. These are the things that remind us that our age is not what is keeping us apart from one another. We are the biggest part at keeping us apart. A five year-old and an adult are both mouth watering when they look up and see a hot air balloon or a person parachuting from the sky. An 80 year-old and a 20 year-old can stop and stare at the beauty of sunsets. A five year-old and a fifteen year-old are all together astounded at the alligator that lies on the bank of the river. And there is not a single age in the world that doesn't see fireworks in the sky and stop and take in the beauty they bring to enhance the night sky.

So maybe instead of completely engrossing ourselves in these "wonders of technology" to bring the world closer together (and I won't totally put down technology as it does absolutely serve its purpose...I love my ipod more than anything) maybe we should see if we can "stop time" and just see how far back we can go to see what brought everyone in the world closer together. What in the world makes the old and the young all meet in the middle?

And to me that night in Orlando, it wasn't a mouse or a roller coaster or an amazing arcade room...it was the night being lit up with the firework spectacle.

THE TURTLE AND THE TOTEM POLE

So today I was pulling up to my apartment complex when I saw something I had to shake my head to realize that what I was seeing wasn't just a vision. I saw the maintenance man at the apartment complex kicking a turtle that was in a parking space that nobody was in (and nobody wanted it either.) This was not a man who was nudging a turtle to get on the grass either. This man was kicking the turtle. I parked my car and by the time I got out of it (my voice ready to yell at this human being) he had got in his golf cart and gone. I also though, man if I did say anything he may have just retaliated by killing the turtle. I then proceeded to pick up the turtle and put it by the lake in the middle of the complex (where it most likely came from). His shell had been completely scratched up and I don't know if it could walk. I am hoping when I walk by this afternoon that it will be gone swimming in the water.

I was so angry. It's not like this man was protecting his life....FROM A TURTLE!!!! This was not an animal that attacks people. It doesn't hurt people. If the maintenance man was a fish or a bug then maybe he would have a case. I was so disgusted, I saw nothing but the color red. I had to put myself in that turtle's shoes (and yes, I know that sounds odd), but remember a turtle isn't a leaf or a tree, this animal can feel pain. It feels a cut. And this is not a bird or a dog, when it is being attacked or hurt can fight back easily. This is not an animal that has a distinct sound that it can let out to get help from anyone hearing. This is a simple turtle.

I called the apartment complex and gave the description of the man. I even told them that it was a maintenance man and that he was in a golf cart (how many can they have 2?) I am not up for getting anyone fired, but I'll be damned if I am going to sit by and allow someone to attack a helpless animal in such a manner. They were outraged, and couldn't believe this happened, and she seemed so furious I am sure they are going to take care of it.

However, this brought something up in my head. I am not going to go into all the things that I think that are wrong in this world. (You wouldn't stay reading this for that long.) However, I think I know why nothing is happening for the better in this country. We, as the people who think they are at the bottom of the totem pole, aren't angry enough. We are angry enough to complain. We are angry enough to feel the emotion. But when it comes to speaking up and joining together and using our voice, we just aren't quite that angry.

This may be an odd analogy but speaking up for that turtle is like speaking up for anyone who is being unjustly beaten. (And we all know people like that weather it is physical or figuratively by society or governments or whatever.) How many times do we use the voice we have. It is so funny, cause a president and Congress and everyone who is in the power of a position can have use all that power that that position will allot them. However, one person comes by and says something vicious about them (whether true or not) then how much power do they have then? Sometimes those words go away, but a lot of the time those words linger.

We are not useless people who go to work every single day and come home every single night, and watch our shows before going to bed. We have the most powerful thing in the world, WE HAVE A VOICE!!!! And that voice only gets used if we allow that anger to shout it forth. No one uses their voice effectively when they are happy or sad. That voice is used to its fullest power when we are angry. Anger is a powerful emotion.

However, the only thing that combats anger is fear. Fear fights anger really well, why do you think that a lot of people go through that part of life where they want to go for more, but they don't? Their fear is outweighing their anger (or drive, which is a form of mild anger) to achieve what they are desiring.

So here is what I think. If you are someone out there who has a brain and feels that there are things that are going wrong in this world. And since I know everyone on this entire planet knows or feels when something isn't right, then the time has come to stop waiting for other people to solve the problem for us and get out there and join our voices together to go out there and stop what is being done to human beings here and all over the world.

Listen, are we at the bottom of the totem pole in this society? ABSOLUTELY!!!! No doubt about that, but I would rather be at the bottom than at the top. For if you are at the top and you aren't keeping the people from getting angry, than that bottom part of the pole will rebel against you and walk out from underneath you. Let's face it when that happens than the rest of the pole will collapse to the floor. Now if the top disappears than what happens to the rest of the pole?

Let's face it, the bottom of the totem pole has way more power than the top? So why not use it to our advantage?

THE COUNTRY IS KILLING US WITH SLOW JAZZ

So this morning I spent a good majority of my time on the telephone. At first I called UPS who sent me to the Best Buy who sent me to their Best Buy main office. The why to all of this is completely unimportant. In my wild goose chase for my missing computer part I found that two things were the same no matter where I called: 1) I inevitably was going to be getting a fake computer woman (though i don't want to put her down, she was very nice; though not responsive), 2) The companies are getting smart, and if you want to speak to a real person you can no longer just push 0, and 3) During the waiting time they play nothing but slow jazz. Then they wonder why I am so mad when they finally get to me.

I think this country's big businesses are trying to kill us all with slow jazz. They make us wait forever on the phone for every small reason (and I'm still not convinced the employees aren't playing on facebook while they are "going to get a manager"). They make us wait while the nice computer woman (nice cause she never yells back at me when i yell at her) goes through the list of numbers that we have to push (none of which ever seem to match what I am looking for.) They make us wait while they send us to the right department, as we were sent to the wrong department in the first place. Waiting....waiting....waiting...

I'm sick and tired of waiting!!!

So I begin to wonder, how much of our life is spent waiting? Don't expect any wonderful calculations, I didn't do any. But I don't think I have to. I think if you are reading this you know how much of our time is spent waiting for things on the phone. And please raise your hand if you think that this waiting process that they put us through makes us just more angry. I know it's a blog, I can't see you, but something is telling me that I don't need to. You can put your hand down now.

So much time is spent waiting on these frivolous nothing things. (And most of the time we end up hanging up anyway.) And I think life and time is passing us by, when we have so many other things to accomplish. But here lies the Catch-22, we are becoming such an immediate society that we refuse to wait. We are willing to wait (though getting angry) on the phone to complain about the part we didn't get from Best Buy, but when it comes to life lessons or life goals we have lost the power to wait.

I was told the other day that I "want everything so immediately." And I was taken aback (as I usually tend to be when someone wants to take on me, which I love). I realized that that person was right. I have all of these goals and I don't want to wait anymore, so I do what i do with the phone, I hang up. I think most of us are like that, and I definitely think the youth of this country are turning into that. It hurts me.

The world around us is becoming so immediate, yet when it comes to fixing the problems (even something as simple as a part you ordered for your computer) the world is still far behind. When it comes to complaining about something or finding out something that happened to us we want to speak to a real human being (and trust me the UPS guy got some words he shouldn't have had to endure.....including my brilliant line "YOU ARE RIGHT, YOU ARE NOT FED EX AND THAT DOES SUCK.")

It is time to focus on ourselves in a humble way. We have got to realize that WAITING IS IMPORTANT, but it isn't worth waiting for when there is "slow jazz" playing. Waiting is only important when we are going for the gold; when we are trying to achieve our goals the old fashioned way, through hard work and pain. Besides when we do that kind of waiting, it tends to be more swing music then old jazz.

So let's all make a pact (even though we are 14 people reading this blog strong) and when we are waiting and slow jazz is playing, let's hang up. However, when there is pain and excitement and fear and swing music we hear, that means it is all going to be worth the wait.

FADES IN THE BACKGROUND

So I was chatting it up on facebook with a friend of mine whom I haven't talked with in a long time. One of those friends that you always got along with but time and space just got in the way. Well there we were, she and I were gabbing on about our love for Scrabble and how we can't find anyone to play with us anymore as if no time had passed.

As time walked on in the conversation my grandmother's passing came up and my friend brought up her mother and how this past year was the year that marked my friend being alive longer than she knew her mother. I don't know why, but i teared up. I cried (and I am not a crier.) My friend talked about going to Italy because she realized that life is too short and you can't wait around to accomplish your goals. She talked about how her mother's death taught her that lesson. And as I was talking about my grandmother I started realizing how special that woman was cause of how she treated and loved everyone, despite her sharp wit and tongue.

However, this is not a "life-is-short" blog; we all know that lesson. However, as time marches on we talk less and less about our loved ones that have passed; or we stop discussing why the person we are with or why our family is important to us; or we stop mentioning the things that our loved ones did for us (no matter how small.) This is a very dangerous thing to stop talking about.

If we stop bringing these things up from time to time then they begin to fade into the background and just become the pieces of cloth that is on our skin, and they no longer are the threads that binds the cloths together. These are the things that make us whole. The way someone completes us, the lesson we learned when the person passed, or the little thing that someone did that made us go, "that is why i love them." Those are the threads.

For example, take it whenever in life you learned that important life lesson of "life is short" That time when we learned that lesson helped us put into perspective that hose dreams we have for ourselves or the goals of traveling or whatever are slowly losing time. Therefore that lesson is the thread that can sew the dream to the reality.

Or: maybe the person we love is getting on our deepest nerves one day, almost to the point of us just wanting to walk away. That memory of the time they let you sing in the car without asking you to shut up could be thread that holds the walking away to staying together.

We can't stop talking about these important things. These are the moments in life when we had realizations; when something that never made sense before became clear, and if we mention those moments but then begin to walk away from them and lose them out of our vocabulary, then we tend to go back to the way we were before the lesson was learned. What progress have we made when we do that?

So I say that if your grandmother made you realize that goals are to be accomplished or if your special someone put a note of gratitude in your car visor and you understood why you were with that person, or if your dog wanting you to love on him made you realize that simple things are important too, than don't stop talking about it. Mention it. Bring it up. And keep in mind that the friends that roll their eyes at the cheesiness of the conversation are the friends that haven't learned that you have to mention these things, cause these are the things that are the fabric of true happiness.

It's not achieving the goal that is the true joy, it is the moment when you realize you can do it.

BITE THE BULLET

Love. This is the only word in any language that is complicated to understand. I mean it has so many levels (and you're not always happy when you feel it which makes it more confusing.) Love holds a lot of weight, as it should, but I think sometimes it holds too much weight. As a society we assign it a place in the stratosphere. We make love this big thing in the sky that is graced on certain people. We make love this thing that people have to work for. Love is supposed to be a power not a "thing." And the truth of the matter is: EVERYONE DESERVES LOVE!

Love has levels. There is a love of one person to another person. Love of parent to child. Love of friend to friend. Love of person to dog. Love of yourself. Love of a type of clothing. Love of a type of beverage. Love of our favorite curse word. Love of God. Love of religion.

The list of loves is a very long list and it can go on and on and on. However, here is the funny thing: we really are careful about using the word. We never tell people that we love them enough. It is very odd you know. I mean we feel it but we hold it back; we keep it from people as if it is a gold ring they should come and get.

My theory is simple. I don't think that love starts until you bite the bullet and actually say the words. Yes, I know actions speak louder than words, and I would never say that people can't show love by actions, of course they can (a dog is a case and point - or a cat for those of you who love those (but that is another blog)).

Is it uncomfortable to say we love someone? HELL YES IT IS!!! It is extremely hard. If it was easy we would just say the word without any weight attached to it. However, times come when we feel it and we want to say it but we don't cause we think it would just be too weird, or the person we said it to would think we were strange. So much care into what the person woudl think.

I say don't care! Say the word, cause the fact of the matter is this. We can show love all day long and people can see it through our actions, but let's face it, sometimes words are just more powerful. They mean more cause we can all identify with the fact that it took courage to say them (cause it takes courage when WE want to say them.)

So I know this wasn't a deep blog but please take this away from this: BITE THE BULLET AND JUST TELL THE ONES YOU LOVE THAT YOU LOVE THEM!!! (And mean it, cause we always know.)